NIKITA Recap: “Falling Ash”

In a seemingly quiet park in Simsbury, Connecticut a father and son are having a conversation about the fact that he is doing better after some sort of past difficulty. The son has his own small business – a soft-serve ice cream truck that is stationed near an outdoor event for some kind of literacy program. As he tends to his customers, a man in a suit places his order, but instead of waiting to finish the transaction, he leaves behind a padded envelope that we come to find out contains a gun. Then the son gets a phone call that sounds like distorted static and after hearing the tones he goes into a trance-like state, grabs the gun and heads straight for the stage of the literacy event. It turns out that a senator is there to give a speech and as the senator walks to the podium, the son begins to fire upon him, being taken down by the security team.

Meanwhile, back at Birkhoff’s house, Nikita is staring at a snow globe while sitting at his bank of computers. As Birkhoff comes into the room, he seems a little irritated that she is sitting there saying, “Hey Birkhoff, I need to use your computer. Is that cool? Sure, Nikki, thanks for asking?” while she sits there quietly. In monotone, she answers back, “Birkhoff I need to borrow a hundred grand, is that cool?” Confused for only a split second he, of course, wants to know what she means. Nikita tells him she and Michael have a lead on someone in Lisbon who has been in communication with one of the Oversight members. They need his jet for this new mission, but he tells her, “No. And, get used to hearing that word because I’m not helping you with your fight against Oversight”. Birkhoff makes it clear that he also wants them out of his house, giving them until the end of the week to move on.

But then Michael walks in, turning on a TV news report about the shooting in Connecticut that he believes is related to an old Division project from 2003 called P9. Birkhoff disagrees because “nobody got out alive”. Michael explains that it was a cover mission created to breed assassins that was presumed to be a cult taken down by the FBI with the entire compound being burned to the ground. Birkhoff shares that P9 was different from Division – more X-Files-like – where neuro-hypnotic programming was used. It would seem the people involved in the program were to be put back into the world with no idea what they were: sleepers. This was a program that we learn Amanda found disgusting, which is what she tells Pierce as they watch the same news clip. Amanda further mentions that the concept was flawed just like the scientist who created it. This scientist was believed to have perished along with everyone else during the attack on the compound, which we learn was run by Michael from inside Operations. And because of his involvement in the destruction of P9, Michael wants to find out more about this Connecticut shooting rather than go to Lisbon on their mission against Oversight, leading he and Nikita to argue over priorities.

Back at Division, we see Alex on the treadmill going through what seems to be a slow healing process from her run-in with Nikita. As it turns out, Amanda needs Alex to once again visit Percy about an old mission called “Falling Ash” – the P9 project. In return for talking to Percy, Amanda is prepared to give Alex a list of the top brass who work for Sergei Semak – the man who ordered Alex’s father to be killed.

Owen, Nikita and Michael

We then see Michael and Nikita at the remains of the burned-out compound where they soon run into Owen (Devon Sawa) who was also following the news clips, piecing it all together because he was part of the strike team against the compound. Owen claims there was a survivor – the scientist, Dr. Joseph Mars – for whom Percy ordered Owen to save during the 2003 raid. Mars is also the one who created the drug regimen that Operatives like Owen have been on for years. Much like before, Owen’s regimen supply is getting low and he wants to find the doctor – who Owen didn’t know if he was alive or dead until the Connecticut shooting – so he can find a way to get off the regimen. As they dig around in the building’s remains, they find Dr. Mars’ hidden floor safe, which is empty, proving that he obviously survived.

Elsewhere, Alex is questioning Percy about P9, learning that Oversight wanted Dr. Mars out of the way; but Percy wanted him kept alive because of his value: “no one knew their way around the human brain better than Mars”. Percy then tells Alex that the next attack will look like a copycat, but it will simply be the next phase in the program; and he knows that Nikita and Michael will figure that out because all of the details about P9 are contained on the black box that they have. Simultaneously, we see Dr. Mars and the guy in the suit from Connecticut talking about activating the next assassin.

In an effort to follow-through on her arrangement with Amanda, Alex does some computer research on the senator who was targeted, learning he will be attending a gala for the literacy group; which of course, is exactly where Owen, Michael and Nikita show up based on their own research. While Alex searches for Nikita our merry trio attempts to determine who is the next sleeper among the crowd. Surprisingly, it turns out to be one of the event planners, an unimposing young girl who, like the ice cream truck owner in Connecticut, receives a phone call that activates her. She heads straight for the senator, gun pointed, with Alex jumping in the way to protect the senator, allowing Nikita to not only disarm the assassin but also for the three of them and the unconscious woman to flee.

Owen

Safely back at Birkhoff’s house, Owen confronts Nikita about having the black box with her confirming that Michael took the master drive from Percy when he left Division. Owen, in turn, tells her that he plans to hunt down the other guardians, destroy the other black boxes and then aim straight for Percy. It is then that the young woman – Alicia (guest star Julie McNiven) – wakes up and sees herself on the television in a screen capture of her holding a gun aimed at the senator. Disoriented, she seeks to find out from Nikita just what happened, as she doesn’t remember anything. But when Nikita shows Alicia a picture of Dr. Mars, Alicia identifies him as the doctor at the rehab – the Vory Clinic – where she went for treatment for addiction to pain pills. The clinic is obviously a front for Dr. Mars to continue his work from the original P9 compound. Alicia explains the clinic could “change the feedback loops on her brain by wearing headphones and sensors to monitor brainwaves”.

A new plan is then set in motion for Nikita to go into clinic, posing as a potential patient to find Dr. Mars, find a way to stop Alicia from being turned again, get Owen the answers he needs on the drug regimen and to put an end to the P9 project. (No easy feat there, I might say). While Owen and Michael wait in the car, Nikita gets into the clinic and begins covert movements to get what they need, but is soon caught by Dr. Marks and his guards.

Nikita

Meanwhile, Alicia meets Birkhoff and they bond over pizza and their mutual interest in computers and tech “stuff”. But their lovefest over all things techie, including the fact that Alicia knows about “Shadowhunter” (Birkhoff’s alter-ego before he was ‘recruited’ by Division), Michael demands his help so he and Owen can get inside the clinic to help Nikita. As they are heading to the back of the clinic, Michael can’t help but notice how well armed Owen is, questioning “how can someone who is unemployed be so armed”. Owen simply states, “Some people are willing to pay for my talents”. The fight is then on with Owen and Michael battling some of the guards as they work their way through the clinic and Nikita fights off the doctor and the guy in the suit from the Connecticut incident.

Once the trio has things under control in the clinic, Owen demands the intel on the drug regimen, but instead the doctor sets off the sonic tones, affecting not only the patients in the clinic but also Alicia, who knocks out Birkhoff with the same snowglobe from earlier in the episode and heads off toward her target, which turns out to actually be a judge who was at the literacy event in the park as well as at the gala. Everyone just assumed the senator was the target, but that wasn’t the case. In a failed attempt to stop Alicia from killing the judge, while she is shooting up the judge’s country home, Birkhoff is nearly shot by Alicia, who is stopped, in the nick of time, by Nikita and Michael.

Back at Division, after Pierce got Alex out of lock-up for her stunt with the senator at the gala, she is looking into the top men working for Semak – which she received as promised from Amanda – and which includes Tasarov (a powerful kingpin who has had run-ins with Nikita in the past). Pierce warns her that the next time she encounters Nikita she needs to take the shot because what awaits for Nikita at the hands of Oversight will be worse than anything Alex can imagine.

Even though Nikita suggests that Owen could stay with them, Birkhoff nixes that idea and Owen agrees that he needs to get clean on the road (seems he found everything he needed on the drug regimen at the clinic while he performed a clean-up while Nikita and Michael helped stop Alicia). And, even though, Birkhoff claims he wants Michael and Nikita gone and that he doesn’t want to work with them, he has created “Shadowbot” – a system that will scan everything and anything – and if it relates to anything found on the black box, it will let “them” know. So it would seem they will be working together after all (but we shall see…)

But in the end, Owen is seen talking to whoever provided him with the weapons; and it turns out that supplier is none other than Tasarov – the man behind Gogol (another covert agency of sorts) who Nikita has crossed paths with in the past and one of the men now on Alex’s list of revenge. Tasarov claims Gogol will help Owen with his mission – take down the guardians, get the black boxes and destroy Percy – but he warns Owen that “if anything outside of that mission happens, it’s out of my control,” which doesn’t seem to bode well for Nikita or Michael.

Falling Ash is the second episode of the second season of Nikita. The next new episode will air on The CW on [corrected] Friday, October 7 at 8/7c.

What did you think of this episode? Were you glad to see Owen back in the fight? Were you surprised (or not) by Birkhoff seeming to come around to wanting to work with Michael and Nikta? Are you wondering what Alex will do next to track down Nikita and the black box? What is Pierce really up to and does Amanda know anything about why he is really “working” with Division? Please share your thoughts on this episode below.